Expected Routines, and Their Disturbance
by infraredphaeton
Summary: The Tenth Boss of the Vongola has an expected routine to his days. When Gokudera gets picked up by the police, that routine is, sadly, disrupted. And by sadly, it's not sad for Tsuna. It's sad for the people who took his right hand away before Tsuna has even had his coffee.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Expected Routines, and Their Disturbance  
Author: infraredphaeton  
Summary: The Tenth Boss of the Vongola has an expected routine to his days. When Gokudera gets picked up by the police, that routine is, sadly, disrupted. And by sadly, it's not sad for Tsuna. It's sad for the people who took his right hand away before Tsuna has even had his coffee.**

 **Disclaimer: None of this is mine, except the incidental characters, particularly D.I. Black and D.S. Green**

 **notes: So, this is going to be about 3 chapters long, and mostly Gokudera and Tsuna focussed. Set about 4-5 years after the end of the series, Tsuna's the Decimo, but we aren't near TYL either.  
**

This is how a morning in the Vongola mansion should go:

Tsuna wakes up at 7:30, ruffles Lambo's hair and smiles at I-Pin as they head out the door for school, and then makes his way to the Small Parlor, where Gokudera is waiting with his first stack of reports, a carafe of coffee, and whatever the kitchens have provided for breakfast. While Gokudera summarises what they've learned overnight, Tsuna reads various newspapers (The Times- both British and New York- The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune- Asahi Shimbun and UAE versions- and the Financial Times, along with the local paper) and picks at his breakfast. Gokudera fusses until he eats at least two pieces of toast, or whatever is equivalent, then they decamp at 8:15 to the Green Office, where Tsuna signs what needs signing, and Gokudera types up summaries and moves actions on Tsuna's own slim laptop, and the rest of the hour passes, if not peacefully, at least quietly.

At 9:00, Tsuna is passed off to Yamamoto as an escort (if he isn't out on a mission) for a meeting with the CEDEF, while Gokudera deals with whatever actions Tsuna has approved, and at 9:30, the group moves to the training grounds. Reborn says that a boss cannot rest on his laurels, and Tsuna almost gets shot, usually around sixty times. He runs several kilometres while Yamamoto runs his kata, and if Hibari is there, they spar.

At 11:00, another meeting, this time with Gokudera and a secondary bodyguard (Tsuna likes Cesare, but Gokudera prefers it when Macchia escorts them), where they deal with an external presence. Sometimes its a friendly- Dino, or Yuni- sometimes ambivalent- Tsuna had, after all, made peace with several families- and sometimes, on particularly bad days, with an enemy.

12:30, lunch, sometimes as a meeting, sometimes as a break, and Tsuna cannot really say if he prefers one or the other. Reborn occasionally takes advantage of Tsuna's slightly lowered guard to torment him and steal his food, and sometimes, lunch meetings can end up friendly.

Finally, the morning is over, and Tsuna can turn to the next stage of the day. When they aren't at home, the routine changes slightly (no small parlour, no green office, often no training), but not to any noticeable extent.

This is how this morning happened:

Tsuna is awoken at 7:00. Not by the softly escalating sound of his alarm clock, but by Lambo's loud yell, and two small hands on his arm.

"Tsuna! Tsuna-nii!"

Tsuna is awake immediately. This is not really Lambo's fault, but Reborn's. Tsuna is more than used to the need to dodge a round to the forehead at a random hour of the night, or a pair of defibrillator paddles at some early morning interval that had a logic only Reborn could understand. His hands immediately come up, ready to punch, and it's only Lambo's eyes- both of them open- that stops him. Lambo and I-Pin had come along on this trip by way of _nagging_. Lambo said he wanted to meet cute English girls (already flirting, where had the time gone?), and I-Pin had argued that if Lambo got to come, so should I-Pin. Eventually, he'd agreed, and well, it was nice seeing them during the day. Not something he wanted to deal with on a consistent basis, bless the school system for the peace and quiet that came from Lambo not being around Gokudera, but nice, for a while.

"Tsuna, the police are here!"

There's a knock on the door, and the sound of I-Pin, yelping in indignation as someone who is not even _slightly_ part of the guardian group dares to interrupt the Decimo in his quarters. Well, his temporary quarters- the London penthouse wasn't the Vongola mansion, but it wasn't exactly a hotel, either.

"Gokudera? Yamamoto?" Tsuna asks, quickly swapping his sleep shirt for a deep orange button up, whipping a tie around his neck in seconds ("Now, now, Tsuna, you never know when a boss will have to get changed quickly. Your last knot took almost twenty seconds, and was lopsided." Reborn cocks his pistol, "Do better this time.") and slipping into a pair of trousers. No time for to change, so he slips fuzzy, sheep covered socks into his oxfords, and has just put on his jacket when the door opens.

"Mr. Sawada," says the calm voice of Macchia, a tall, dark man with bright hazel eyes and a constantly dour expression, "the detectives insist that you're needed at the station."

"Gokudame-" Lambo snickers to himself, "got taken in. Maybe ten minutes ago? Word only just got back here. Yamamoto is dealing with the staff."

Tsuna nods, straightening his cuffs and slipping in his usual cufflinks- understated sterling silver, a graduation present from his mother- as he falls into step in front of Macchia, who is, quite properly, a step behind and to the left.

Gokudera is always on the right, but today, Lambo lopes along in his place.

"Oh, kami-sama," Tsuna stops suddenly, "is Hibari in town?"

"No, he's still in Colombia," Macchia says helpfully, and Tsuna lets out a heavy sigh.

"Well, that's a small miracle."

It's only 7:05, and Tsuna is already incredibly unhappy with how this day is turning out.

Gokudera should have just woken up. Instead, he's sitting at a table in what he sure is New Scotland Yard, hands cuffed and facing a stubborn looking D..I and his partner. The D..I introduced himself as Black, his partner as Green, and they'd both ignored his raised eyebrow at their partnered names with nothing but a shared look of 'this again? this happens every time'.

"So, Mister…?" Green trails off, and Gokudera obligingly fills the gap.

"Hayato Gokudera," he says. He shouldn't actually be in trouble. He's never caused much chaos in London. He'd never caused much chaos in London that could be traced back to him, he corrects himself, and even this time, he was pulled in on self defence.

"Hayato Gokudera...That's Japanese, right?" Black says cheerily, and Gokudera shrugs, slumping back in his seat.

"I want to make a phone call. I want my lawyer. And I have work in half an hour-" It's already 6:50, he should be half way through the international reports, writing his summaries for the tenth's perusal during their afternoon meeting, flagging important matters for the breakfast briefing. He should have checked the progress of the staff, swept the parlor- the dining room, here in the London Penthouse- for bugs, and generally be ready for the tenth's arrival- "I need to let my boss know what happened."

"And what did happen, Mr. Gokudera?" Green asks, leaning forward and tapping her pen on her notepad. There's a microphone between them, picking up every word, which means Gokudera has to get this right the first time.

"I saw the two girls, and the group of assholes harassing them. I was out on my jog, about an hour earlier than usual because I knew I had a lot to do today," he takes a moment to glare at the detectives for this delay, "so I went over and asked if the dickfaces were bothering them. They said yes. I told the guys to fuck off, and apparently, they took offence. When they refused to leave, I beat them up, and offered to walk the girls home. That's when officer fuckhead brought me in."

It's fairly close to what actually happened. Gokudera had been out looking for trouble- a gang by the name of the Razors had been causing a bit of a fuss for the London office, and he hadn't had a real fight in weeks- so he'd been strolling the streets, looking for a few of them to use an object lesson for their idiot leader. Eventually, he found their second in command, and a few idiots, messing with a pair of high school girls, probably on their way home from a party, and he'd leaped at the opportunity. Unfortunately, he'd leaped at the wrong moment, and a nearby PC had seen the tail end of the brawl.

"Jogging? In that outfit?" Green asked, and Gokudera looked down at himself.

Neat, dark jeans, black sneakers, a black suit jacket over a Storm red button up shirt, unbuttoned enough to show the collar of his black tee-shirt, his five favourite necklaces, a wristcuff, some bracelets, and eight rings.

"Yep," Gokudera said coolly, crossing his arms. "I want that phone call now, please."


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry for the delay! Here's chapter 2 of about 3/4.**

This is how Gokudera Hayato's morning is supposed to go:

Gokudera wakes up at 5:30am, and goes for a run to limber up and start his brain going: there will be a lot of plotting and planning, and he doesn't have the luxury of relying solely on caffeine, nor the privilege of a lot of dedicated training time. He takes mental notes on items to action as he runs, and prioritises what Tsuna will absolutely _have_ to attend to today.

He returns, showers quickly, and finishes the last summary reports for Juudaime by 6:30.

Then, Gokudera double checks Tsuna's breakfast for poison and the kitchen for -urgh- his sister, gathers the newspapers, and kicks Lambo in the ass when he takes too long making his hair look stylishly unstyled in the bathroom, so he won't miss his chance to see Tsuna before school.

At 7:45, Tsuna stumbles into the dining room, all fluffy haired and sleepy eyed, and Gokudera takes a moment to reflect on how goddamn lucky he is to be the right hand man to such a fantastic person. He does this by unleashing an unrelenting torrent of information proving how much attention he's paying to the tasks Tsuna's entrusted him with, while Tsuna makes unsure sounds into his coffee- cream, two sugars, prepared by Gokudera himself _just in case_. Together, they look over the selected portions of the newspaper that Tsuna either needs or wants to read, and Gokudera sums up the rest of the papers so that Tsuna can concentrate on avoiding his breakfast in favour of three more cups of coffee.

Then, Gokudera forcibly stuffs breakfast down Tsuna's throat because _honestly_ , the man cannot be trusted to sleep without supervision, let alone eat a healthy and un-poisoned breakfast.

Gokudera might still be slightly sensitive about food poisoning, but he won't admit it.

At 8:15, Tsuna is awake enough to actually work, and Gokudera watches and works as his boss- _his boss_ , he's so proud- compares reports, asks questions, and generally gets on with the business of being a boss, rather than the sleepy zombie Tsuna that rises in the morning. While Tsuna reads, Gokudera makes a lot of text based threats via his phone, and shouts at a few people. He has three screens open- a laptop, a tablet, and a phone- and all of them are busy, as he switches from one to the other to the next, moving from task to task with single minded determination even as Tsuna figures out precisely how he wants to tackle the list of issues Gokudera had come up with on his run. Gokudera is always busy, filtering and filing and making sure that Tsuna isn't being harassed by trash petitions (and maybe, just maybe, Gokudera has been exposed to Squalo for too long, his vocabulary is catching) and boring busy work, but it's usually the quieter part of the morning, just soft sounds of pages turning and coffee being drunk, with the occasional quiet question of clarification or solemn order from Tsuna.

At 9:05, Gokudera glares at the baseball idiot over his foot tall stack of paperwork, even as Tsuna rises, stretching, and waves goodbye. On his way out the door, he always turns, smiles, and says "Thank you, Hayato. I really couldn't do this without you."

After that, Gokudera is propelled by the sheer force of Juudaime's esteem, and things _get done_. Whether it's typing summaries, moving actions, checking up on missions or blackmail or meetings, Gokudera works until his inbox- and Tsuna's- is empty. Towards the end of the session, Gokudera quickly types up exactly what he's done and puts it on Tsuna's computer, and then rubs away the tension headache that starts to gather at the fact that Juudaime has now been out of his sight for almost two hours- he's probably been poisoned by now. Yamamoto is a hopeless bodyguard.

10:45 brings enough to time to go down to the range for fifteen minutes. Not enough to improve, but enough time to stay current on his skills, and Gokudera enjoys the chance to move and work, rather than just using his brain.

At 11:00, Gokudera scrubs gunshot residue from his hands and goes to retrieve his boss from Yamamoto, who really doesn't deserve to have Tsuna all to himself for an entire hour, let alone two. He musters another bodyguard, because he'll be busy actually working during whatever meeting Tsuna has planned- he prefers Macchia, because the Sicilian is built like a tank and professional, as well as being a very, very good shot, but Tsuna likes Cesare's easy going manner and willingness to whip out his walletful of baby photos of his adorable daughter Maria, so the Decimo's bodyguard changes regularly.

12:00, Gokudera goes down to the kitchens to make sure that his sister -aargh- still hasn't sneaked into the food area, and double check the buffet for signs of tampering.

12:30, Gokudera watches Tsuna like a hawk until he's actually eaten properly, and then allows himself to eat. Lunch meetings are stressful, because even if a negotiator or visitor is from an allied family, it doesn't mean they won't try something unsavory, and if Hayato kept a hand on his dynamite at the table, people might get the wrong idea.

After that, the morning's finished, and Gokudera can start worrying about the afternoon.

Today, Gokudera is stuck in a police station in fucking England.

Knowing his luck, Juudaime will totally, totally get poisoned while he's away. And what about the Varia After Action Reports? VAARs were time sensitive and, more importantly, their writers tended to get murderous if they didn't receive prompt praise for not murdering random civilians and breaking Omerta in the course of duty, despite the fact that for most operations, that was really the bare minimum expected from operatives.

D.I. Black smiled at him, arching his hands in front of his face like an anime villain, and Gokudera sneers, kicking back on his chair.

It's probably not the wisest move, but Gokudera's never dealt well with older people patronising him, and even if his story wasn't totally watertight, the detectives could stop staring at him like he'd tried to murder their grandchildren.

Gokudera thought back quickly.

No, he definitely hadn't. And Green looked too young for grandchildren anyway.

"So, you've called your lawyer, Ms. Kurokawa, is it?" Green asked, laughing, "It sounded a bit heated- are you sure we shouldn't be protecting you from her, rather than her protecting you from us?"

Gokudera shrugged, slumping in his seat a little. "I attended school with Hana, she's on retainer for my company now, but we have a good friendship," he said, crossing his arms. He hasn't got a reason to be scared. His juvie records are sealed, and the Vongola are far too efficient to let their people have visible criminal records. Really innocent people, if they had Gokudera's temperant, don't act nicely. They know they haven't done anything wrong, and they're pissed off at having their time wasted.

While Gokudera had very, very definitely done some wrong things, he's equally pissed off about having his time wasted.

"Now, about your company," Black cut in, "we'll have to monitor the call, but of course you can call your boss and explain the situation."

"You don't have to," Gokudera said, sounding irritated, "I'm a law abiding citizen of the EU. I know my rights."

Just the phrase makes Green's face go tight, and Gokudera has to stop himself from smirking. She has very obvious tells for a detective, and Gokudera, who has studied law just to know exactly what crimes he was committing, now knows _exactly_ what cards to pull.

"Look, Mr. Gokudera, we don't want any trouble. We're holding you until the gang members you found get progressed, and we do need a statement."

"Then why are you treating me like some kind of criminal?" Gokudera asked, trying to channel some of Tsuna's hurt puppy expression into his own face.

"Mr. Gokudera. Cut the shit. You beat up eight armed gang members."

Gokudera tries a little bit harder.


	3. Chapter 3

**Two more chapters to go! I know people are enjoying this, thanks to all the favourites and follows, and it's really great to get such a big reaction on my first ever KHR fic. Thanks so much! If you do enjoy this chapter, please drop me a comment, they're really great motivation to keep writing. Also, there's a new Varia centric short story on my profile, if you like Xanxus, Lussuria, and H/C, please check it out and give me some feedback!**

 **DI Black, DS Green, and DCI White are all my characters, and are based on a lot of BBC/ITV detective show cliches. Let me know if you catch them!**

* * *

Detective Inspector George Black generally has fairly uneventful mornings. Unless he gets an emergency call, he wakes up at 7:30, kisses his wife goodbye and sends his children off to school with hugs and kisses (and maybe he's a little sentimental, but he's seen enough shit in his career not to give a damn about his 'manly pride' in favour of showing his family how much he cares). He drinks a cup of strong tea, puts on his coat, and drives to work.

By 8:00, his partner, Daniella Green, is at the station, and they go to the morning briefing together, eating the donuts that their rookie, Jimmy, is obligated to bring in.

At 8:30, it's time to get to work.

Today is only slightly different.

At 6:30, his mobile phone rings, with the standard _beep beep beep_ that he set for the station phone, and he gets up.

"Go back to sleep, love," he tells his wife, and goes into the hall to hear about the scene that the uniforms had found five minutes ago, with all the unconscious Razors and the angry Italian and the _murder_ and could he please come in as soon as possible?

So he stumbles into his suit in the dark, goes in to kiss his kids goodbye, and comes in, as soon as possible.

Daniella was waiting for him in the hall outside of interrogation room 1, with a very thin manila file.

"His name is Hayato Gokudera, age 21, Italian with dual citizenship to Japan. He attended an elite boarding school in Northern Italy, had a promising career as an avante garde pianist- apparently that's a thing- before moving to a tiny town in Japan just after he turned thirteen." Daniella summed up, as George flicked through the file. There was an I.D. photo from his passport, a high school transcript- with a lot of notes about problems with authority and constant absences, and a note of occupation.

"He works for V.G.I?" George asked mildly, and Daniella nodded.

"Assistant to the CEO, Mr. Sawada. He hasn't stopped complaining about how he's going to be late for work. It seems like a hot button issue for him."

"Usually personal assistants aren't so high up the ladder, but it looks like Mr. Go-Gok-"

"Gokudera. It's Japanese," Daniella said, taking the file back.

"I thought he was Italian?" George frowned, "Anyway, Mr. Gokudera has a company card, and is currently staying at the Savoy. In the Royal Suite."

Daniella whistled, "That's one rich P.A."

"He's staying with Mr. Sawada and his entourage, apparently." George said, scratching his chin.

"Mr. Sawada gave an interview a few months ago. He travels with his personal chef, a few bodyguards, his P.A., his personal trainer, his lawyer, his accountant, and occasionally, his wards," Daniella read off the page, "He has enough money that he doesn't have to skimp on staff. Anyway, Mr. Gokudera has been taken into custody due to his involvement with the Razor scuffle in Hornchurch, just off Appleton Way. Until the Razors come to, we don't know if they'll press charges, but the girls he saved-" she turned the page, "Allie, Fiona, and Grace, say that they don't think they would have been alive without his help. Apparently, the Razors had threatened to rape and kill them, although Fiona noted in her interview that she thought maybe the killing was just an empty threat, and they would have been let go, maybe just robbed afterwards."

"Brave girl," George noted, moving up to look through the two way glass, "it's hard to think past that sort of threat. Back to Mr. Goku-Gokuda-"

"Gokudera. It could have been an honest defender of the innocent sort of encounter, but we found a body a few streets over, in Leather Lane." Daniella showed him the photograph- a charred body, only just recognisable as human, "the labs are going over it, but right now, they think it was a grenade, possibly. There was damage to an Iceland nearby, it looks like explosives."

"And Mr.-"

"Gokudera."

"Yeah, has he said anything other than that he needs to get his boss some coffee?"

"Just that we can't keep him here, he knows his rights."

"Well, let's go talk to him about those rights. Send Jimmy down, I want a warrant to look for explosives residue on this bloke," George said. "If he's not a witness, he's a suspect."

Gokudera leaned back in his chair, glaring at the detectives. The older one, Black, was drinking something out of a mug, tea or coffee, while Green slowly paged through his scrubbed clean file.

It was a shame that they'd managed to pick him up under his real name, rather than one of his aliases, but the Vongola Cleaning Division did their job well, and the only links from Gokudera Hayato, highly paid assistant and head of accounting, to Gokudera 'Smoking Bomb' Hayato, guardian of the Vongola and explosives expert, were buried in small town Italy, in hard copy, where he'd first started his mafia career. Even those would soon disappear, as soon as they got someone into the department to clean it up- right now it wasn't a big enough concern to prioritise, and Vongola Cleaning was always busy trying to keep Hibari's name clean.

"Mr. Gokudera," Detective Green said, "we really don't want to keep you any longer than necessary, and if the scuffle with those thugs was really the only thing that happened this morning, we would release you as soon as possible."

"You make it sound like it isn't," Gokudera said, crossing his arms and glaring at the detectives, "What else happened?"

"You tell us," said Black, throwing a photo onto the table in front of him.

Ah shit. They'd already found Henry Slash. Gokudera didn't react outwardly other than a widening of his eyes.

"What-"

"This body was found, only a few streets away from your fight with the miscreants who were attacking Misses Fonda, Churcham, and Graves. Time of death has been estimated to about ten minutes prior. You can see from the photo that this damage was done with fire- can you tell us anything about it? Did you hear anything? See anything?"

"I'm not talking anymore until my lawyer gets here," he said, sitting back and pushing the photograph back over to the detectives.

Green and Black exchanged a look, and the older detective stood up, stretching a little.

"We'll leave you here to think about it, Mr. Gokudera," he said, trying not to stutter over the foreign name, and Gokudera scowled at him. "We'll let you know when your lawyer gets in contact with us."

Gokudera nodded, and Green pushed the photograph back over to his side of the table.

"Just in case you think of something," she said, offering him a slightly cruel smile, and Black held the door for her as they left him alone in the interview room.

Gokudera took a look at the photograph, of course. He didn't have the self-restraint not to.

Henry Slash was a bad, bad man, and he didn't regret his death. It had been necessary, and saving a couple of innocent girls was a choice he didn't have to struggle to make. A single bomb- a special, low smoke, low sound dynamite that Giannini had been struggling to develop- and Slash was off the streets for good. Maybe now, the Razors' leader would realise that horning in on Vongola territory was a very unhealthy thing to do.

One less problem for Juudaime.

He put the photograph down and took a deep breath, hunching down in his jacket- these places were always cold.

Sit tight, and wait for the lawyer. Hayato just hoped that Tsuna had remembered to eat breakfast before he started work today.

It's 7:45 when the lawyer for Hayato Gokudera turns up at the station. She's petite, with blue-black hair and an eyepatch, and wears an expensive looking skirt suit with a ruffled purple shirt. Her suitcase is huge, for such a small person, and she taps off a bluetooth headpiece as she enters the station, offering a serene smile to the receptionist.

Green and Black, who had been letting Gokudera stew, and talking about Black's youngest daughter's swim meet, and if Auntie Danni would be attending, were slightly taken aback. He'd only made the call fifteen minutes ago, after all, and even in police cases, lawyers were lawyers, and didn't rush anywhere.

"Dokuro Seisshinko," she said solemnly, offering Black an expensive looking matte black card. "I'm Mr. Gokudera's representative. Mr. Sawada wants this settled as quickly as possible, and is en route. In the meantime, what precisely is the problem?"

Dokuro spoke quickly and quietly enough that Green and Black had to lean in a little to hear her, and her single visible eye was sharp and strange, like she was seeing not only the detectives, but their thoughts as well.

"Or, ah, I'm sorry. Seisshinko Dokuro, here in the West, I suppose." she corrected herself. "I'd like to see my client now, please."

Black was old enough not to sigh, but Green looked irritated as they showed Ms. Dokuro to the interrogation room, where she offered them another pleasant smile, and shut the door in their face.

"Well, we've lost him," Black said, with a shake of his head, and Green turned the business card over, "look at her firm."

"Almeja, Susling and Kerang? Aren't they that international group?"

"Not just that, but they're a heavy hitting power in criminal law. Both prosecution and defence- do you remember the Carlotto case?" Black asked, as they watched the conversation through the mirror, unable to hear, but able to see Gokudera's look of chagrin as Ms. Dokuro spoke.

"The mob boss who got off last year?"

"Represented by Almeja, Susling and Kerang," Black said grimly. "They're the elite, the best of the best, and somehow, Mr. Sawada's personal assistant- a glorified secretary- has them on retainer."

"That's some benefits package," Green said, slipping the business card into her blazer pocket. "So what do we do now?"

"They have ten minutes, and then we go back in. Ms. Dokuro has the right to be present during our discussion. And we better hope that we get it wrapped up before a billionaire comes in and throws a temper tantrum because he didn't get his newspaper on time this morning."

"What will the DCI say about that?"

"Probably, give Mr. Sawada back his P.A. before he pulls V.G.I out of the area and it leads to an international business problem."

"Damn," Green said, shaking her head, "Money really does just solve some people's problems, doesn't it?"

"Fucking rich people," Black agreed, finishing his tea. "Okay, they're nearly done. Remember, we need Gok-Gokuda-"

"Gokudera."

"On his back foot. He looks like a punk, but there's something canny in his eyes. I wouldn't be surprised if this Mr. Sawada was being managed by his P.A. If he gets too comfortable, he won't give us _anything_."

Inside the room, there was a fairly different conversation going on the one that the detectives saw through the glass. Chrome had spun a quick illusion over the window, showing the same lawyer-client conversation they'd seen in years of investigation.

"Gokudera," she said, nodding to her fellow guardian, who nodded, still scowling. "What happened?"

"I took out Henry Slash, saved some girls' lives, and got arrested," he said, lifting up the photograph to show the aftermath of his fight with the gang leader.

"Hm." Chrome said, taking a seat. She was still fairly tired, and the heels of her lawyer persona were uncomfortable. "Well, Boss is on his way here with Lambo and Yamamoto, and Hana's on conference call with Reborn and I-" she gestured to her earpiece, and Gokudera nodded, looking ashamed, "so we'll get it sorted out soon. Standard procedure."

"Boss…" Gokudera repeated, going red, "I feel so ridiculous. I should be working, and I've caused this completely unnecessary-"

"Don't worry about it. You know it happens to all of us from time to time," Chrome said, waving a hand, and then smiled. "We can make it go away, and you can go back to quadruple checking Tsuna's food for poison."

"I don't-" Gokudera said hotly, and cut himself off. He did. He really did. "Well, it's just never happened to me."

"True. But it had to happen to someone, and Hibari-san already has far too many incidences in his record."

They paused to think about the leader of the Disciplinary Committee who was, no doubt, already arrested by the Colombian authorities. The police just seemed to happen to Hibari. Probably because when they asked if he had really killed the people he'd just killed, he actually said yes.

"When do you think we'll get out?" Gokudera asked, shifting uncomfortably.

"Hopefully by midday." Chrome said, straightening her files. "We're using profile C for you today, okay?"

Gokudera nodded, "So I'm working at V.G.I?"

"As an assistant to Mr. Tsunayoshi Sawada, the CEO of the Vongola Conglomerate-" she looked up, as the door opened.

"Sorry to rush you," Green said, holding the door for her partner, who preceded her into the room to take a seat on the other side of the desk, "but we really want to get this sorted and either let you go-"

"Or charge you," Black finished smoothly. "Ms. Dokuro, I trust our conduct has fit your standards? It's not often we get a lawyer from Almeja in our little station."

"Perfectly," Chrome said softly, settling her files and smiling at the detectives. "Let's get started, shall we?"

A small spark of Mist hid her bluetooth turning back on, and Chrome faced the detectives not as herself, but as the combined cunning of Hana Kurokawa and Reborn- the head of the Vongola Law Department, and the number one advisor to the Decimo.

Gokudera almost felt sorry for them.

Almost.

Then he remembered that they were keeping him away from Juudaime, and decided that they deserved whatever they got.

"Ah, hello, Miss," said a soft, sweet voice from just in front of Alice Cheng's computer. She looked up, and saw the most pleasant looking man she'd ever seen in her life.

He wasn't especially handsome- he had rounded cheeks and large, doe like eyes, but he was too tall, too whipcord muscley, to be described as cute. Instead, Alice found herself drawn to the small, friendly smile on his face and the warm sparkle in his bright brown eyes, and felt herself flush.

He was the sort of man you could imagine diving into a river to save a drowning puppy- he just radiated _goodness_.

The people surrounding the man, however, seemed a little more dangerous. A mountain of a man in a dark suit, with an earpiece. A young Japanese man who offered her a disturbingly relaxed smile. Even the young teenager- he must have been eleven or twelve- had an air of delinquency to him, helped by his scruffy hair and lazily half closed eye.

"Yes, sir, how can I help you?" Alice asked, deciding to focus on the least intimidating of the group.

"My name is Tsunayoshi Sawada," he said, still smiling, "one of my employees was taken into custody about half an hour ago? I've come to pick him up."

Alice paled. This nice looking young man was the billionaire her boss had warned her about? He just looked so...sweet. Not like the owner of a multinational business conglomerate at all.

"If you'll just wait one moment, sir." Alice asked, frantically dialing the intercom to the DCI's office. DCI White would want to hear about this. He wanted to deal with it personally, he'd told her.

"Sure," Tsuna said, and the large man- clearly a bodyguard- went to get him a chair. "I've already had a few delays this morning," he added sweetly, "I can wait another few minutes."


End file.
